Fed Chair Says More Economic Help Is Needed: Live Updates
A simmering rift within the Democratic Party spilled into public view on Tuesday as Senator Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, pressed Neera Tanden, President Biden’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, over millions of dollars of corporate donations that the Center for American Progress received under her watch.
The tough line of questions was a rough patch for one of Mr. Biden’s cabinet picks and underscored the lingering tension between the Democratic Party’s progressive and moderate wings. Ms. Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress think tank, served in the Clinton and Obama administrations and was a top aide to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“Now, Ms. Tanden, at a time when the wealthy and large corporations have extraordinary influence over the economic and political life of this country, I must tell you that I am concerned about the corporate donations the Center for American Progress has received under your leadership,” Mr. Sanders said in his opening statement. “Before I vote to confirm your nomination, it is important for this committee to know that those donations will not influence your decision making at O.M.B.”
Mr. Sanders cited a report that found that the center received at least $38 million from corporate America since 2014.
Mr. Sanders also questioned Ms. Tanden about her criticism of him and his allies.
“There were vicious attacks made against progressives, people who I have worked with, me personally,” Mr. Sanders said.
Ms. Tanden and Mr. Sanders have clashed since the 2016 election, with Mr. Sanders accusing Ms. Tanden in 2019 of “maligning my staff and supporters and belittling progressive ideas” after ThinkProgress, an independent editorial branch of Ms. Tanden’s think tank, criticized Mr. Sanders for the size of his income from writing a book.
On Tuesday, during her first confirmation hearing before the Senate homeland security committee, Ms. Tanden faced similar criticism — only from Republicans, who spent the first hour grilling her over her Twitter posts and asking why she deleted more than 1,000 posts shortly after the November election.
Senator Rob Portman of Ohio read aloud posts in which she called Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, “Moscow Mitch,” and said that “vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz,” a Republican senator from Texas.
Ms. Tanden apologized to that committee and said that she deleted some of her tweets because she regretted her tone.
At the Wednesday hearing, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the committee, said that he was not overly concerned with the donations that Ms. Tanden oversaw but brought up her criticism of both Republicans and Democrats.
“Her scorn was not limited to Republicans,” Mr. Graham said. “This is not the unifying pick that I was looking for in this position.”
Mr. Graham also leaned into the tensions between Ms. Tanden and Mr. Sanders, dusting off previous criticism that she leveled at the Democratic Socialist from Vermont, including comments suggesting that Russia tried to help the Sanders campaign in 2016.
Seriously this is ridiculous. I’m not for litigating the primary, but from what we know now, Russia did a lot more to help Bernie than the DNC’s random internal emails did to help Hillary. Try to actually look at some facts. This whole attack is a joke.
— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) February 18, 2018
In her opening statement on Wednesday, Ms. Tanden insisted that she would work in a bipartisan fashion if confirmed. She noted that some of her abrasive language in the past was because of her role as a political activist and she apologized for offending people with her comments on social media.
“I apologize to people either on the left or right who are hurt by what I said,” Ms. Tanden said.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/02/10/business/stock-market-today/